Thursday, July 27, 2017

Atomic Blonde Review (2017)

David Leitch’s “Atomic Blonde” is a sleek and stylish
action/thriller set at the tail end of the Cold War. It’s easy to get lost in
the airbrushed 80’s aesthetic, Jonathan Sela’s lush, meticulously crafted
visuals and the all around unruffled attitude the film (and its characters)
exhibits in every frame. There is a plot but it’s extremely rote and
superficially complex; at about the halfway point I simply stopped caring about
where things were going. Still, the picture oozes style. It’s more about secret
agents looking cool and smoking cigarettes and beating each other up than
anything else. Furthermore, the film is bolstered by a magnetic Charlize Theron
who plays the titular badass blonde, a character that combines the classiness
of James Bond with the brutality of John Wick.

Visually, “Atomic Blonde” is marked by two distinct styles:
during the day the color palette is muted, dominated by grey and white. But at
night, Berlin transformers into a neon lit wonderland--multicolored lights are
everywhere, at the various bars and clubs. A cramped, unassuming watch shop
where cold war spies sometimes do business is lit in curious green. The hotel
room where MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton (Theron) stays is aggressively lit by
blue, pink and red. In fact, the neon lighting appears to be installed
underneath and behind her bedframe. The lighting design gives the film a seedy
yet romantic glow.

The various spies and authority figures that populate
“Atomic Blonde” are always cool and mysterious, trying to act nonchalant (and not
doing a very good job at it most of the time. They really do a poor job of
blending in with their environment) as they conduct their shady spy business in
the streets of paranoia drenched Berlin and fight one other. Relationships are
surface level and loyalties are for sale--the characters are driven by their
own agendas. They walk around with a detached, self-assured swagger. Leitch
turns Berlin into a colorful, hypnotic labyrinth, teeming with Cold War dread.

The coolest and most mysterious of the characters is
Lorraine. She wears nothing but snazzy outfits— a new elegant and sexy dress
every night. During the daytime she wears a pristine white pea coat, red heels
and large shades, an outfit that compliments her straightened blonde hair.
Lorraine’s movements are graceful and calculating. She knows instinctively when
she’s in trouble, or being set up (which happens a lot in this movie) and
quickly switches into action mode. Her hands turn into lethal melee weapons and
she takes care of business, looking good while doing it. Even when Lorraine
simply sits in her neon lit hotel room smoking a cigarette she emits an
effortless glamour, like a Femme Fatal in an old school film noir. Theron is
mesmerizing. Understated and ruthless, cold and detached but also very aware of
the alluring effect she has on the men around her, which she uses to her
advantage.

The espionage narrative is expectedly twisty and
underwhelming. It’s simultaneously convoluted and not as clever as it thinks it
is. Most of the major plot twists and character revelations are obvious long
before they happen. The screenplay by Kurt Johnstad (based on a graphic novel
series by Antony Johnson and Sam Hart) relies on a lot of well-worn spy movie
clichés. Lorraine and the rest of the characters are after a top-secret list
containing the true identities of thousands of agents from the around the
world, an overused MacGuffin. Overall, the film contains a lot of bland,
familiar plotting that adds up to very little.

Ultimately, “Atomic
Blonde” is too derivative and muddled to be a great film but it’s still
entertaining thanks to its enthralling style and Theron’s onscreen radiance.
There’s also a much buzzed about five minute long single take action sequence
that’s a real doozy. It’s captured with a blunt handheld clarity. The melee
combat is brutal and visceral (you can feel every punch, kick and shove) and
clumsy and sluggish at the same time.Lorraine and the various henchmen take turns slugging each other and
then go to catch their breath. It plays out in a more realistic manner, rather
than being choreographed like a dance. The sequence is exhilarating and it
gives Lorraine’s character a layer of vulnerability. It might be worth the
price of admission alone.